The present invention relates to a submerging ramming arrangement with a housing, an impacting body for delivering ramming impacts, pressure medium actuating drive means for the impacting body, and holding means for suspending the arrangement on a supporting element.
Ramming arrangements of this general type are known in the art. Known ramming arrangements are disclosed, for example, in the German Offenlegungsschrift Nos. 2,454,521 and 2,538,642. The housing of these known arrangements is suspended on a supporting cable which extends from a suitable lifting mechanism, for example a crane, to supporting brackets or ears arranged fixedly on the housing. Since the impacting body of the ramming arrangement during each ramming stroke delivers impact against the ramming pile or a cap arranged thereon and drives the pile by a respective amount further into the bottom, the ramming arrangement during the ramming operation must be lowered in correspondence with the obtained driving in, because otherwise the ramming impact is no longer transmitted to the ramming part but instead acts upon the housing or the supporting element in damaging manner. In the event of ramming operation from a floating base, the latter is subjected to the action of sea waves and other external influences producing irregular movements which are increased in these conditions because of the boom of the lifting mechanism. The displacement of the ramming arrangement suspended on the supporting cables, which takes place in vertical direction, makes it necessary to continuously monitor the position of the ramming arrangement so as to guarantee that the running ramming arrangement is continuously placed on the ramming pile.
For eliminating the above mentioned difficulties, it has for a long time been known to arrange the ramming arrangement as a whole in a supporting frame which is suspended from the supporting cable, in a vertically displaceable manner, so that it can automatically follow the downward movement of the ramming pile, and the supporting frame provides for a compensation of uncontrollable vertical movements resulting from the sea waves, etc. This construction, however, has the disadvantage that, because of the provision of the supporting frame, the outer dimensions and the entire suspended weight are considerably increased, whereby the handling becomes more difficult and it is also prevented that the ramming device can follow the ramming pile through pile guides corresponding in diameter to that of the pile.